A commercial fisheries report by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game shows the 2015 Upper Cook Inlet sockeye salmon run to be the latest on record with some unusual patterns.
Commercial Fisheries Biologist Pat Shields says the season had unexpected peaks in daily harvest rates for the gillnet and drift harvest areas.
Shields: “It does look like the sockeye salmon run to Upper Cook Inlet this year never came in any big number on any specific day. They just kept coming and coming in kind of smaller than average numbers, but for an extended period.”
The Upper Cook Inlet commercial harvest of approximately 3.1 million salmon was 15% less than the recent 10-year average annual harvest of 3.7 million fish.
The mid-point of the sockeye salmon run was found to be July 25, the latest ever estimated using the department’s offshore test fishery.
The 2015 Kenai River late-run king salmon escapement estimate was around 22,600 fish, well within the sustainable escapement goal of 15,000-30,000 fish.
